


Atlas

by thehungagayums



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: 3x13, Bellamy Blake - Freeform, Bellarke, Character Study, Clarke Griffin - Freeform, F/M, Friendship, Hurt/Comfort, The 100 Canonverse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-24
Updated: 2016-12-24
Packaged: 2018-09-11 15:24:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,082
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8995732
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thehungagayums/pseuds/thehungagayums
Summary: Clarke settles in beside him, her shoulder barely brushing his side. He feels her presence, senses it more than anything else. His body is attuned to hers, but it’s more like muscle memory than a conscious effort.It’s a faint reminder of the way things used to be. The two of them, shoulders hunched against the wind at their backs. A team. A unit.He’s forgotten what it’s like to have her hovering at his side. Not a comfort, but a constant. A given. He took it for granted and only realized it after she left.[set in 3x13 canonverse; a short character study of Bellamy Blake]





	

She’s walking towards him. There’s nowhere to hide—he’s exposed, standing here vulnerable and isolated on the edge of the shore with the ink-drenched waves lapping at his boots.

So he builds a fortress around himself to keep her out.

“Let me guess,” he says flatly once she’s within earshot, glaring at his the toes of his boots. “You came here to fix things. _Wanheda_ , the Peacemaker.”

 He hears Clarke’s huff of frustration escape her pursed lips.

“I came to see if you’re okay,” she amends. As if he needs the reminder of Octavia snapping at him, of Jasper’s dark, hooded stare that followed him down the wave-beaten jetty.

He scoffs. Yeah, he’s not okay.

He’s alone in this world, a flesh-and-blood version of Atlas bearing the weight of the world on his shoulders.

Bellamy sniffs. “Well, I don’t need your help.”

He tries to believe it. He waits for her to believe it, too.

Clarke settles in beside him, her shoulder barely brushing his side. He feels her presence, senses it more than anything else. His body is attuned to hers, but it’s more like muscle memory than a conscious effort.

It’s a faint reminder of the way things used to be. The two of them, shoulders hunched against the wind at their backs. A team. A unit.

He’s forgotten what it’s like to have her hovering at his side. Not a comfort, but a constant. A given. He took it for granted and only realized it after she left.

He glances down at her. She isn’t the same as she used to be, either. World-weary, hardened. He doesn’t pretend to know what she’s done, what she’s seen, in their time apart. He doesn’t really want to know. Her eyes are vacant, scanning the dark horizon for something. She’s here, but at the same time, she could not be farther away.

And it hurts. More than he expected it to hurt. First Octavia, now Clarke.

Will he ever stop feeling alone?

Or maybe, the better question is, will he ever go back to _needing_ to be?

He sees Octavia in the distance with Jasper, the bursts of bright green flames illuminating their faces, brightened by rare smiles. Hears her faint laughter echoing on the wind. Too long since he’s heard it. Too long since he’s seen her smile. Longer still since he’s been the catalyst.

“Clarke,” he mutters, and she cranes her neck to look up at him. She follows his gaze to the isle and looks back at him, a modicum of pain filling her eyes. “I’ve lost her.”

When he says it aloud, it feels true. It breaks his heart. The pain swells.

She shakes her head. “Give her time, Bellamy.”

He shoves his hands in his pockets. Tries to shove down the pain, but it’s flowing through him like the blood in his veins. Inescapable. He sniffs, but he can’t hold back the tears that well up in his eyes.

“There may be blood on your hands, but it’s not Lincoln’s,” Clarke says, softer now. She touches his arm, her fingers light on his wrist. He nearly jerks it away, but something inside him, the weak part of him that has hibernated for the last few months, forces him to hold back.

It’s a feeling that is almost foreign to him. He hasn’t felt gentleness in a long time. Too long.

Against his will, a tear slips down his cheek. He lifts a hand to swipe it away, but Clarke’s already seen it. Her lips are tight. So he just lifts a shoulder. “Some of it is,” he says, a wry, humorless smile pulling at the corners of his mouth.

“Maybe,” she concedes. “But you didn’t want that to happen. You tried to stop it.”

He shrugs, unconvinced. Maybe he tried, but it wasn’t enough of an effort.

Were he a god, he’d have broken the chains around his wrists, fled from that cave into the night, slaughtered anyone stupid enough to try to kill Lincoln. He fancies himself a man with supernatural strength, but in the end, he always finds himself disappointed. Broken. Mortal, to a fault.

“Octavia will forgive you eventually,” Clarke says softly. “The question is, will you forgive yourself?”

Bellamy closes his eyes for a moment, and the ache in his chest intensifies. Simple question, not so simple answer. He still hasn’t forgiven himself for letting his mother get floated so many years ago. Why should he be so quick to forgive himself for his crimes on the ground, for the pain he’s caused the people he cares about, _loves_?

“Forgiveness is hard for us,” he mutters, and he swears that Clarke almost smiles at that.

He looks at her. _Really_ looks at her, probably for the first time since he found her wrists tied behind her back and eyes awash with terror. For so long, he hasn’t let himself really believe that she’s here to stay. Until now, he hasn’t let himself get attached. He’s been burned once, and it’s too easy to shut her out.

But now he sees her. Sees the pain in her eyes, the scars on the bridge of her nose, and under her eye, and he knows that she is hollow. Gutted, like him, by the things she’s done and seen. And maybe he doesn’t want to punish her for that.

“I was so angry at you, for leaving,” he says finally, his voice breaking with emotion. And it’s strange, telling her this to her face, after so many months of imagining this conversation. He thought he might yell, that he might grab her by her shoulders and shake some sense into her, but he’s just so— _tired_. “I don’t want to feel that way anymore.”

Clarke smiles, and it’s wry, thin. “Yeah, well.” She shrugs, dropping her gaze. “Neither do I.”

It’s quiet, save for the sound of waves crashing on the shore.

“You know, you’re not the only one trying to forgive yourself,” she says. “Maybe we’ll get that someday. But we need each other, Bellamy.”

For a time, he has been Atlas, bearing the weight of the world on his shoulders alone, without Clarke to take on some of the load.

But now, as he folds her into his arms and buries his face into the crook of her neck—completely undignified and decidedly far from stoic—and feels her breathe him in with a sigh of relief, Bellamy realizes that he isn’t alone anymore.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Come find me on Tumblr; I'm thehungagayums and I'm feeling angsty about Bellarke.


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